New name, new route, new winners? – Analysing the contenders for the men's and women's Ronde Van Brugge

Formerly known as Brugge-De Panne, the main three-week period of cobbled Classics kicks off on Wednesday and Thursday with the men's and women's Ronde van Brugge, freshly renamed for 2026 and with new finishes in Bruges.

The new routes both start and finish in Bruges, moving the race away from the coast in De Panne, meaning they miss out the windy De Moeren sector, which could radically change the race. The windy exposed sections have previously shaped the event and made important selections, but the 2026 editions could be more straightforward, as they are still pan-flat and missing that key action point.

The routes have added a cobbled stretch, though: the Brieversweg, which appears twice in the women's race and three times in the men's, though it ends 30km from the finish line.

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With these changes, the races have become perhaps even more sprint-friendly than before and with fewer places for the race to be ripped apart.

The good news is that the new finishes avoid what was becoming quite a dangerous run-in in De Panne, which attracted considerable criticism last year for the obstacles and turns in the finale. The finish in Bruges is much more straightforward.

Though they're WorldTour races, plenty of top-level fast riders have opted not to race Ronde van Brugge in favour of In Flanders Fields (a.k.a. Gent-Wevelgem) later in the week, but there are still some top names lining up on Wednesday and Thursday.

Here are some of our favourites for the wins in Bruges.

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech)

Jasper Philipsen won this race in 2024 and 2023, albeit on the old finish, and will return this year still looking to prove himself after a slow start to the year. The Belgian finally took a victory at Nokere Koerse last week, but looked significantly off the pace at the Volta ao Algarve and Tirreno-Adriatico. Put it all together and a win at WorldTour level would go a long way to just lifting his stock up again.

On paper, 10x Tour stage winner Philipsen should be the strongest sprinter on the start list on Wednesday, but his competitors will be smelling weakness, and there are a lot of motivated sprinters who will be jumping at the opportunity to take a big win before the harder cobbled Classics begin. If Philipsen wins, it will be a boost to his year and his standing in the sprint hierarchy, but if he's beaten again, no doubt he'll face some questions and scrutiny.

Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ)

After Lorena Wiebes, Lara Gillespie is the sprinter of the moment, and she's really well suited to these longer, hardier races with a mass dash at the end. After testing Wiebes all year in 2025, and waiting to finally take her own win in September, she's opened her account much earlier in 2026, sprinting to the triumph at Le Samyn. Indeed, she's finished in the top three of the last three Belgian Classics she's raced, so it seems likely that she can continue that streak on Thursday.

The key for Gillespie will be her team, as this is one of those races where you need to stay out of the wind as much as possible to save something for the final sprint, so you need teammates who will do the positioning and chasing in order to stay in front without using up too much energy. Elynor Backstedt has been great at this for Gillespie so far this year, so if they can pair up and take on the teams like SD Worx, this could be a chance for the Irish rider to nab her first WorldTour victory.

Dylan Groenewegen (Unibet Rose Rockets)

Dylan Groenewegen hasn't been considered part of the upper echelon of sprinters for quite a while, but he's rocketed (pun intended) back up the hierarchy at the start of this year, already having three wins to his name.

Most recently, he took back-to-back victories at the Bredene Koksijde Classic and GP Jean-Pierre Monseré, which admittedly are not the biggest races, but are similar in terms of their startlist to the Ronde van Brugge, and his deep familiarity with the Belgian roads will help a lot here as well.

The Dutchman isn't always the fastest sprinter, but he has a solid staying power at the end of hard races, and is clearly finding a good seam of form with the Unibet Rose Rockets. This race will be a step up, but they've shown they can get it right, so why not aim for a big win on Wednesday? Groenewegen captured this race way back in 2019, on a very different finish and route, and could add his name to the honour list again this week.

Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)

Elisa Balsamo and Lidl-Trek are on the hunt for a big one-day win this spring, and Ronde van Brugge could be a good opportunity for the Italian. She's won this race twice before, in 2022 and 2024, and Lidl should bring a strong line-up here so they could definitely work to make the race more selective and challenging.

Balsamo's own form seems to be on the up, having ridden to eighth at Milan-San Remo over the weekend and she'll be hoping that she's coming back towards the level that saw her finish in the top ten of everything between Binda and Paris-Roubaix last year.

Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché)

Arnaud De Lie is one of the sprinters still waiting for a victory this year, and he came close on one stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, finishing second, but otherwise hasn't quite shown the speed or ability of last season just yet. The 24-year-old is putting all his attention on the Belgian Classics this year, so Wednesday will be an important test of where his form is over the cobbles.

Last year, De Lie had a real string of bad luck in the cobbled Classics before taking a two-month break from racing with illness, so more than anything, he'll also just be hoping for some better fortune this spring.

Shari Bossuyt (AG Insurance-Soudal)

Shari Bossuyt has been knocking on the door of a win for a few weeks now, racing four times and finishing in the top seven every time, and she'll be hoping for a harder, more challenging race on Thursday. The Belgian loves racing at home, with her first win since returning from a suspension coming at the GP Wallonie last year, so the Ronde van Brugge seems like a prime place for her to score her first victory of 2026.

Whether she can beat riders like Gillespie or Elisa Balsamo in a straight sprint is not quite clear, so she and her AG Insurance-Soudal teammates might opt to try and make the race harder and more selective. However, that's going to be a lot trickier to do with no De Moeren in this year's route.

Milan Fretin (Cofidis)

A slightly leftfield choice perhaps, but one less obvious name to keep an eye on is Milan Fretin. The length and difficulty of this race mean we can see some surprise winners every now and then, with the sprint not always entirely as expected, and Fretin has been a threatening B-tier racer in that speciality both this year and before.

The Belgian was pushing the top riders at the AlUla Tour, and then grabbed a victory at the Vuelta a Andalucía. He took some victories at similar races last year, so if things get a bit messy or chaotic, he could be a good pick to take advantage and claim a top result.

Pfeiffer Georgi (Picnic-PostNL)

Pfeiffer Georgi took a really memorable win in Brugge-De Panne in 2023, and though it was a different race back then, she'll still carry some confidence from the past into this race on Thursday. After Charlotte Kool's departure last summer, Georgi is taking more responsibility at Picnic-PostNL this spring, and this could be a good chance for her to sneak into a smaller selection of riders and nab a victory.

She hasn't raced a lot this year, with a fairly anonymous start at the UAE Tour, but she was on the offensive and looking very strong at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and then sealed 11th at Milan-San Remo, so the signs around her form are positive. After some really injury-affected seasons, a clear run at this spring will hopefully remind us of her strength and race-winning ability.

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